


Pushed too far

by xantissa



Series: Carnival of Rust [18]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fix-It, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turin and Khan talk, Jim learns that eavesdropping rarely turns out the way you expected. Also: Khan's secrets have secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushed too far

 

As the door opened Turin saw Khan standing on the other side, his brows already  furrowed.

 

“Ao? What are you doing here? I told you to stay in the infirmary!”

 

Not pausing to explain, Turin barged into the room and enfolded Khan in a giant hug, holding on tight.

First he felt his boss stiffen up in a way he hadn’t in Turin’s presence for a very long time, then start to try to subtly squirm out of the hug. Honestly, hugging Khan was sometimes akin to trying to hug a cat that didn’t wish to be hugged. They became a squirming mass of pointy bones, claws and even teeth sometimes.

 

“I’m sorry.” He said into the side of his friends head, crushing him even harder to his chest. Khan wheezed a little from the force.

 

“What?” The dark haired Augment managed to ask.

 

“I’m sorry. I am so very, very sorry. I never should have insisted on taking them with us. I’m sorry.” Turin whispered, hugging even tighter, barely noticing just how still Khan become.

 

“Turin, I can’t breathe.” Khan said quietly.

 

The blond put one of his broad hands on the back of Khan’s head, his palm mussing the short hair,  in an unspoken acknowledgment of the cut hair.

 

“You will deal.” He unknowingly paraphrased Khan’s words and it made the dark haired warrior snort weakly in amusement.

 

“I’m so sorry. Sorry that I insisted on taking them, sorry that you had to watch so many of us die, sorry that you were alone through it all.” Turin said tightly.

 

Khan was silent and very, very still for a long moment. An eternity leter he let himself sag a little bit, his body melting into Turin’s wider one.

 

“I missed you so much.” Khan said slowly, closing his eyes and letting his forehead fall against Turin’s neck. “So much.”

 

“What happened?” the blond asked gently. “As much as you care about us, as much as you went through watching us helpless and dying, as much as you hate being helpless yourself, as much as you care, what pushed you to change so much? What made you lock your heart away so deeply you wouldn’t even accept one of your consorts?”

 

Khan sighed into the broad shoulder. “You just had to figure it out, didn’t you?”

 

Turin said nothing but ran his hands through the cropped hair, his fingers pulling loose the longer strands.

 

With another sigh Khan pushed out of the hug and paced away from his bigger friend.

 

“I wasn’t the first one awake.” Khan started, his voice low, deep, almost rumbly and hypnotic. "They had trouble with the technology at first and between their incompetence and the inevitable malfunctions, six of our people were dead. I am not entirely sure, the records I managed to get were incomplete but I think that the first one they successfully woke was Saiks.”

 

Turin winced.

 

“Ouch.”

 

“He must have panicked, having woken up surrounded by unfamiliar doctors and not sensing single one of us. He tore through the base, killing most of the science staff and military personnel. Eventually Marcus had most of the base sealed off and vented into space. After that they became much more cautious. They had tasted the destruction a single Augment could do so they started to wake people from the cryosleep, but keep them heavily sedated. I believe Marcus wanted to learn our abilities and our limits. There seems to be almost no data on us left, even though it’s been only 300 years. Vincent covered our tracks well.” Khan trailed of, his eyes pale and staring somewhere into the middle distance.

 

“They didn’t know you were our leader.” Guessed Turin.

 

Khan nodded.

 

“The gamble with unmarked pods paid off. Sadly when I was woken I was also subjected to heavy testing, especially for my resistance to chemical agents. It took some time... I have no idea how long, but Marcus wasn’t pleased with the fact that none of us would cooperate. I know of at least two that committed suicide outright after realizing our situation.”

 

Turin closed his eyes. He wanted to go to his friend, his leader and comfort him like he used to when they were younger.

 

“We knew the weight of our mission very well Khan. We knew that our lives were on the line. Do not forget that we all volunteered. On that day we swore to abandon our will, our beliefs, anything that would interfere with your plan, and follow you wherever you might take us. Be it heaven or hell, we would not, will not hesitate.”

 

Khan didn’t look at him, but in his posture Turin could see that he was remembering the day they pledged themselves to this mission.

 

“We both know that wasn’t exactly true Ao.” Khan said gently. “Out of all our family, you were the only one that ever really had a choice.”

 

Ao snorted.

 

“You did what you could to change that Khan, by the end we followed you because we chose it, not because of biological imperative.”

 

Khan said nothing and Turin only sighed. It was an old argument with them, one they would probably continue for the rest of their lives. “I made my choice the first time I met you. I’ve never regretted it, since. That oath? It was just a formality.”

 

Khan turned his eyes away from the blond, clearly uncomfortable with such blatant adoration. He loved his crew and he was aware they loved him back, but every time one of them proved it is some highly visible way, it made Khan uncomfortable. The man would sacrifice himself for his family without second thought but hated it when they did the same. The fact that this mission, the only _real_ mission they ever did, demanded such high casualties from his crew had to be killing him.

 

It was probably the only situation where Khan averted his eyes from somebody. One of the very, very few signs of weakness he ever showed.

 

“Somehow, likely during one of the tests that Marcus ordered on me I let slip too much. Up till that point Marcus was very careful to not give me a single opportunity to escape or kill myself like those before me. Then he found the means with which to break me, a perfect opportunity to break me he said.” Oddly enough Khan’s tone didn’t really change. It was smooth, rhythmic baritone that echoed gently in the small quarters.

 

“He had me watch, as his so called doctors tortured to death Jakra and Jon.” Khan licked his lips, the first sign that his emotions were rising. “ _Then_ he had the kid’s pods wheeled in. I was informed that they would suffer the same fate as those two before, as punishment for my refusal to cooperate. That I was free to change my mind _after_ because beside them he still had 72 pods to do with as he pleased.” Khan’s voice reached incredibly low timbre, a barely audible, fierce intonation that sent shivers down Turin’s spine.

 

“What happened?”

 

Khan had his eyes closed, fists clenched tightly and tears trailing freely down his cheeks, but his voice was strong and clear.

 

“I could not save them.” Khan took an even, controlled breath and turned around. His pale eyes speared into Turin’s holding the man captive, denying him any chance of withdrawal now. “I could only offer them mercy.” He waited till Turin’s own gaze widened in slowly dawning understanding.

 

“They were my children and all I could offer them was mercy.”

 

Turin felt his legs become weak and reached instinctively for a wall to hold himself up.

 

“I’m sorry Khan, I am so very sorry.” He whispered but even though Khan was staring right at Turin he seemed to be light years away.

 

“They put a two way comm between the place where they were keeping me and the lab the butchers were working in. I waited until they started powering up the capsules for defrosting and I used my command code, ordering self-destruction of both pods.”

 

This time Turin moved towards Khan, placing one hand on his friends shoulder and then pulling him forcefully into a hug again. He wanted to repeat that he was sorry, that he should have never insisted on taking the kids, on foolishly believing that the world they woke in would be better, a more peaceful place.

 

Khan still talked and Ao really wished he would stop, that he would just give in for a moment and let himself grieve, would forget to be a leader for a moment and just mourn his children.

 

“It was not a tactically sound move, but I couldn’t let those butchers torture them to death. It was the  one thing that would have broken me immediately.”

 

 Maybe the saddest, the most heartbreaking thing was that Khan’s voice was still even and calm, his emotions and grief buried so deep they didn’t even affect his speech any more. Ao couldn’t even think of what it must have taken for Khan to reach quite that level of control of his emotions, what horrors.

 

Turin just held his friend harder, refraining from saying that it broke Khan anyway.

 

“He realized you were the Captain then.”Ao murmured, sensing that Khan wouldn’t.

 

“Yes.” Khan agreed. “Up until that point he thought I was only an officer.”

 

“After that he had you working for him.” Turin continued, hating to hear that dead tone on Khan’s voice but knowing the poison had to be purged, that this brilliant but stubborn man had to share his burden with somebody or go insane.

 

No one besides Khan knew the secret to Ao’s existence. The reason for his creation and also the reason he was only one significantly different from the whole crew.

 

In the original project he was never supposed to meet Khan,at least not until it was too late to change the inevitable outcome of that meeting. Inevitable but for Khan’s brilliance. Even as a child, he could deduct and anticipate the actions of their handlers, sometimes years in the future.

 

Khan, still a child, managed to break into the level that Turin was being raised in. Khan, brilliant, unflinching Khan, who in just sixty seconds managed to convince Turin to stray from the path created for him and walk his own. Instead of his own future he decided to do everything in his power to ensure Khan’s vision would come to fruition.

 

Khan who came up with the simplest, most brilliant plan ever created.

 

The uncontrollable round of coughing was a rather rude interruption to their hug. Turin bent in half, trying to control the spasm. Khan gripped his shoulders and forced him back towards the bed. When Turin’s knees hit it, Khan forced him to sit.

 

“You shouldn’t have left the medbay this early.” Khan chided, all the while gently forcing Turin to lay down.

 

“And leave you alone?” Turin interjected as soon as he got his breath back. “Not a chance. Besides I’m all right. You know I’m all right.” Still, he let himself lay down on the surprisingly comfortable bed.

 

Khan sat down beside him, back still military straight but his face gentler, those pale eyes not as unforgiving as usual. The dark haired man reached out to touch Ao’s, carefully wiping the specks of blood from the blond man’s cheek.

 

“It’s been cold without you, Ao.” Khan said gently.

 

Turin caught Khan’s hand in his own, broader one.

 

“I’m here now and I am not going anywhere.”

 

 

*             *             *

 

                It was Bones who broke first. He got up from the chair he sat the last half an hour in and strode resolutely to the comm console, shutting the whole thing down.

 

“Enough Jim. We shouldn’t have watched it at all.”

 

When he turned to look at the blond Captain, he froze. The things they heard were painful and uncomfortable, but Jim looked physically ill.

 

“Jim.” Bones asked gently. “Are you all right?”

 

“You were right. It was a bad idea.” Jim said shakily. “How am I supposed to reconcile this... atrocity that  was done to Khan with the atrocities the man committed himself?” He rose, started pacing the fairly spacious room. “One part of me wants to pity him, to apologize for the things he suffered while in Marcus’ hands while another can’t forgive him for Pike’s death, all the other innocent lives lost due to his vengeance.”

 

While talking, Jim made another agitated circuit of the room.

 

“And you know what is the most horrible, most devastating thing for me? That between Khan and myself is just one, small difference.”

 

Bones had been watching his friend, his expressions more than the actual words but this caught his attention.

 

“What?”

 

“I could have, would have done exactly the same if it wasn’t for my crew. If you, Spock,  Scottyweren’t there to hound me for my decision to pursue John Harrison I would have probably fired those torpedoes and damn the consequences. I would have started a war that could have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. I would have become just like him.”

 

Bones sighed.

 

“Jim.” He started talking, making sure to keep eye contact with his young Captain. “You didn’t. When push came to shove, you didn’t. That is all that matters. Besides life is way too short for what might have beens.”

 

“It’s not that easy, Bones. I always thought of myself as the good guy... it’s hard, seeing how close I really stand to the other side.” Jim said slowly, looking very, very tired.

 

“Well, there is something else we learned from this little bad idea.” Bones said in a falsely cheerful tone.

 

Jim raised an eyebrow at him in question.

 

“Khan lied about the reason for him and his crew being on Botany Bay.”

 

Jim blinked for a moment, quickly changing tracks.

 

“He said they were exiled.” He tried to remember the exact words Khan used.

 

“Yeah, but his conversation with Turin proves that it’s not exactly true. They obviously had a goal, one important enough to throw their lives on the line. And since the Augments don’t strike me as people who do that easily, the reason have to be extremely important.” Bones continued. The doctor felt uneasy knowing that there was something going on under their noses, something that was planned 300 years ago.

 

“Mr. Spock once said that _no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy_. If it’s something Khan planned three centuries ago it may already be completely shot.” Jim mused, his mind still shying away from the sheer insanity of trying to plan quite that far into the future.

 

Bones snorted.

 

“First we already know what very few enemies survive contact with Khan and second, the very fact that the man is even here means that his plans obviously pan out, even if they were set three centuries ago. Damn him.”

 

Jim slumped.

 

“Yeah. We need to find out what that secret is. Since I don’t think any of his people would talk, it has to be him that tells us.”

 

The doctor made a short, disbelieving sound.

“Yeah I know. His secrets have secrets.” Jim murmured.

 

“He has to trust you eventually.” Bones said getting up and heading for the door. “Otherwise this whole mess with saving his crew will be for nothing.”

 

Jim didn’t answer. After all there was really nothing to say to that.

 

The end

29-07-2013

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> People you know the kudos button, use it. Also I have been way too good, updating every three days LOL
> 
> Most probable next part: Jim and Khan stranded on a planet, after their shuttle crashes quite spectacularly. Time to move that relationship along or I will NEVER finish this series. Sigh. Also tell me sex or no sex yet?


End file.
